REUTERS
A night shot of the Moses Mabhida Stadium in Durban. South Africa is developing a Sports Tourism Strategy to bring more global events to the country and make use of stadiums built for the FIFA 2010 World Cup.
South Africa did not have a well defined and integrated sports tourism strategy despite having built a strong track record for hosting major global sporting events including the rugby, cricket and soccer world cups.
But, deputy sports minister Gert Oosthuizen told delegates at the Sports and Events Tourism Exchange (Sete) conference in Durban yesterday that the first ever Sports Tourism Strategy for SA was expected to be finalised by the end of the year.
“This week, the department put out the draft Sports Tourism Strategy for industry and public comment. We are expecting to finalise this important document and table it to cabinet by the end of the year. We call for comment not just from the tourism industry, but sports organisations and federations,” he said.
Oosthuizen said they would be working closely with the SA Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (Sascoc) and the tourism industry to finalise the strategy after discussions at the Sete conference.
“The plan is part of our commitment to increasing sports tourism and its contribution to the national economy… We have to take a long-term look at developing sports tourism, recognising the economic development and social cohesion impact it can have on our country. We must have a pro-active plan, post the 2010 World Cup, and look at the major international sports events we want to target over the next 15 to 20 years,” he said.
Oosthuizen hinted that SA may yet bid for an Olympics Games, saying the country had the capacity to do so and that after the 2016 Olympics in Rio, Africa would be the only continent to have not hosted the Games.
Meanwhile, speaking at Sete, Gideon Sam, president of Sascoc, said SA needed to develop a sports tourism strategy that would see the country become “bold and more aggressive” in bidding for international sports events.
“We need to pull together, all the sporting codes and bodies, as well as the tourism industry and department of sports and recre¬ation, to have a proper strategy in place to bring global events here… SA is missing out on securing these events. It is not just about the Olympics. There are numerous other events we can bring to SA,” he said.
Sam said SA missed out on the opportunity for bidding for the 2020 Olympics, but could not adopt the attitude that “the world owes us”. He said as part of being more aggressive, SA needed to have a core bidding team in place for international events.
“We can’t work in silos anymore… We need to get our act together or risk losing out. We can’t let detractors hold us back and we need strong leadership,” he said.
